Granada

October 2, 2004 to October 3, 2004

Well, it was bound to happen. We’ve finally come to a ride where I really can’t remember anything at all. Actually, that’s not quite true. I just can’t remember anything about the first two thirds of the ride, which is where all of the interest and scenic attraction must have been. Other than the photos of Montefrio itself I took on leaving town (which I included in yesterday’s post), there is only this single photograph to hint at what the day must have been like. Just more of the same, apparently: beautiful rolling hills blanketed in olive groves. Yawn. No wonder I only kept one photo.

We do have one clear memory from the ride though that has stuck with us over the years. 25 miles into the day we came to A-92, a high speed, high volume controlled access divided highway. There is a frontage road and quiet alternative route to Granada, but it was too small to show on our paper map and we really weren’t sure what to do when we came to this point. We stood here by the side of the highway for several minutes, staring at the map, staring at the road, trying to divine the right course to take from here, when we were rescued by a bicyclist from Granada out on a day ride west to I think Loja. He spoke a limited amount of English - just enough to understand our predicament - but once he did he took us under his wings and changed his plan for the day. Rather than continuing on the ride he had planned he gave us an escorted tour back to Granada, roughly ten miles away. It’s one of the most memorable acts of kindness we’ve been blessed with in our travels.

Our benefactor, writing down his email address for us after dropping us off in Granada. Hey - he was on a Cannondale too!

We stayed in Granada two nights, seeing the incomparable Alhambra and doing the usual tourist things. There are a million accounts of the Alhambra, so I won’t waste words on another one. I will share my favorite story from our visit though. As we like to do, we arrived right at opening time in the Alhambra and were almost the first visitors. For a few brief moments we nearly had the place to ourselves, which was of course amazing and awe inspiring. Soon though I heard rustling behind me and turned around to see that a Japanese tour group had arrived and were lining the railing on the balcony above us. As I remember now, it seemed like there were about 200 of them lined up, all with their cameras pointed down in my direction.

Just for completeness I’m including our photos from this visit, uncaptioned; but if you want more detail you might check out the much more developed account of our second visit to Granada.